The topic of this episode is, “How does media affect our perceptions of Congress?’

As listeners no doubt know, Americans are down on Congress. Public approval of Congress has averaged about 20 percent over the past 20 years, according to Gallup. Certainly, the people on Capitol Hill are partly to blame. We have legislators who behave as if they are on a reality television show and who spend a lot of time starting fights on social media. Congress also has hurt its reputation by failing to address major public policy issues, like immigration and the soaring national debt. And then there are the occasional scandals that disgust the average American.

Yet, Americans’ dour opinion of Congress also is fueled by media coverage.

To talk more about this I have with me Rob Oldham, who is a Ph.D. candidate in politics at Princeton University. This year he will be an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, and will be spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill. His published papers investigate the relationship between supermajority rules and bipartisan policymaking. His dissertation considers congressional policymaking in response to crises during the era of polarization.

And importantly and especially relevant for this podcast is that Rob is the coauthor (along with James M. Curry and Frances Lee) of a fascinating, recent article titled, “On the Congress Beat: How the Structure of News Shapes Coverage of Congressional Action.” This article was recently published by Political Science Quarterly.

The topic of this special episode of the Understanding Congress podcast is a recent book by Michael Johnson and Jerome Climer. The book is titled, Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People (Morgan James Publishing, 2024). Mr. Johnson and Mr. Climer each have spent more than four decades in Washington, DC and have had stints working inside Congress.

Today, I have with me one of the authors, Michael Johnson, who, I should add, is not to be confused with current House Speaker Mike Johnson.

He has a long resume—he has spent about a half century in or around government, with stints in the White House, Congress, and private sector. Mike also coauthored a book with Mark Strand, Surviving Inside Congress (Congressional Institute, Inc., 2017), which we previously discussed on this podcast.

The topic of this episode is, “Does Congress still suffer from Demosclerosis?"

My guest is Jonathan Rauch, the author of the classic book, Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government (Times Books, 1994). Jonathan is a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of numerous books, including The Constitution of Knowledge (Brookings Institution Press, 2021), and Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2014).

I first read Demosclerosis nearly 30 years ago, when I was a graduate school student. I was rifling offerings outside the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan, and the book’s title grabbed me. Once I cracked it, the writing got me hook, line, and sinker. Rauch had taken social scientific insights to explain the mounting federal government dysfunctionality. Whereas pundits and politicos blamed Washington’s foibles and corruptions on bad people, Rauch showed that the trouble was caused by people within the Beltway rationally pursuing their own interests.

I recently re-read this book and think it is absolutely on to something important about Congress, and I am delighted to have Jonathan here to discuss it.

Show Notes:

- Demosclerosis (National Journal, 1992)

- Mancur Olson

- Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working (Public Affairs, 1999)